What A Week!

This week has just been beyond crazy. With 7 kids you have lots and lots of appointments and the foster systems just adds to that. I don't mind the appointments though because it gives some really good one on one or one on two time where the kids just jabber away.

This week we have learned way more than what we would have ever wanted to learn about trauma in children. We are blessed though that DCS has hired us a counselor to train us in parenting hurt children. A couple of days ago I spent 9 hours with a caseworker and I learned so much about the kids in foster care, how the system works and sooooo much more.

I learned that in our county (we have a very rural county with not a lot of people compared to other counties) there are now only about 4-5 foster families. The problem is that there are 7 caseworkers and each one carry a load of 16-20 somethings kids. Do the math and that is not nearly enough foster families!

Every single day people ask me how I do it. Let me ask you a question...how do you not do it?

A long time ago I asked God to open my eyes to the things that broke his heart. Maybe that's why I couldn't continue to make excuses. When I asked God to do this my eyes were opened beyond anything I could imagine. This week my eyes have been opened to things that I would have never dreamed about a year or 2 ago.

It's not easy being a parent or a foster parent. The truth though is that I am finally at a place in my life where I can put my selfish desires aside because I can no longer sit on the sidelines watching. I wish I would have done this a long time ago.

When we signed up for foster parenting I told the caseworker "bring me the special needs kiddos but don't call me for the extremely hurt child." Let's just say that things have gone the complete opposite of what I asked for. God has now given me a huge heart for the things I didn't think I could handle and he is also giving us the tools to take on everything that he brings us.

There are so many hurt children needing someone to love them. I can't even begin to tell you the changes that happen in a child when they start feeling safe for the first time in their life. Adoption and fostering parenting is HARD but if everyone says "I just couldn't do it" then who will be there to show these children the love of Jesus? Trust me I was one of those that said "I just couldn't do it."

Our Crazy Life

Wow! I had no idea what I was getting into when we signed up to be foster parents. How can life be so full of blessings and trials all at the same time? You go to classes and you learn a lot but you know nothing until you are living right in the middle of it.

First of all I had no idea how much fun have 7 kids would be! I also didn't realize how having so many kids meant that at all times at least 2 or 3 kiddos are smiling and making you laugh no matter what else is happening in the house.

I didn't realize that God would give me the same momma heart for kids that were here just for a season as he does for the kiddos that we consider "ours". I didn't realize that there is a real momma bear in me ready and willing to fight at a moments notice for what I feel is right for each child.

I didn't realize that even as hard as it is at times that being foster parents was a missing piece to our life for so long before we finally got brave enough to say yes.

If you hop over to Linny's blog you can read a story about one of our little treasures.

I have to share this picture just because it is sooo stinkin cute of the little boy God blessed us with from the other side of the world.

Last but not least a picture of my favorite man in the whole world!!!

Being A Family Of Nine

It has been almost 2 weeks now that we have been a family of 9 (10 once Torry comes home) and we are actually doing really well. To be honest I think we are doing better than we did when we were a family of 5.

The kiddos always have someone to play with. If you get frustrated with one sibling you just go find another one. Do you know how fast a house can get cleaned when you have 9 people helping?

We were even ready for church 30 minutes early the other morning and this has never happened when we were a family of 5. We even did 9 showers/baths before church and still was ready early.

We even managed to take everyone out to eat the other night and grocery shopping and we got many comments on how well behaved our children were. The waitress at the restaurant even said that after one of the kids leaving her a nice size puke mess to clean up (too much chocolate milk).

The downfall to having a family of nine is the amount of laundry we now have!